Dateline NBC - Simply Diabolical

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

A bizarre cyber-revenge case lands a young woman in jail; an unexpected twist reveals the real culprit. Dennis Murphy reports. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tonight on date live. I would wake up and I would see the white jail cell wall and I would think this is just a nightmare. And it wasn't. It was for real. There's some sort of a love triangle. Two women, one guy. You have the U.S. Marshall.

He has a former girlfriend named Michelle. He has a new wife. The new wife went to authorities and said that she was being harassed. She was receiving emails threatening her life. Strange men appeared at her door and tried to attack her. She had a torn shirt. She had bruises on her neck. She immediately points the finger at Michelle. The evidence looks very clear that everything is originating from Michelle Havley.

The guy said we just arrested Michelle. It's very hard to see your daughter being placed in handcuffs. You're incarcerated. For potentially the rest of my life. I was scared to death. It's a story captivating the country. There's something not right here. A toxic love triangle and a dangerous game with someone playing for keeps.

Diabolical was the word you used. Absolutely. Something that the devil might do. I just remember thinking, how did I get here? I didn't do anything. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Dennis Murphy with Simply Diabolical. in a cage, the shrieks of women howling in the night.

This isn't real. This is like something you would see in a movie. This doesn't happen in real life. How did a self-described goody two-shoots, a Disney princess, get swept away in a conspiracy so convoluted, so twisted? This is one of the most well-thought-out, well-executed plans, and it's scary. Diabolical. Absolutely. A tangled web, you bet. And altogether bizarre plot. This is the most shocking form of love rivalry that I've ever seen. There would be allegations of harassment, cyberstalking, assault, and attempted rape.

Someone was going to get hurt. Someone was going to jail. And at the end of the nightmare, a twist no one saw coming. She's a liar. You decide whether it was a love rivalry. But in the beginning, it was clearly a boy meets girl love story. It was a very intense period of my life in the sense of just a very kind of whirlwind type of romance. August 2013, 20-something Michelle Hadley met a U.S. Marshall named Ian Diaz over a cup of coffee.

Things move fast. He told you that he loved you. Are you beautiful? Yes. He sort of hit you with a thunderbolt, huh? Yeah, kind of early on, actually. Yeah, about the second date he was telling me he loved me. Did you think slow down, buddy here? Did you welcome it?

You know, I think when you're a young girl who's kind of been raised on the fairy tale princess dream, it's very exciting and flattering. Could this be her prince charming she was meeting over a cappuccino, the man she dreamed of since she was a little girl? She was very imaginative, very intelligent, and she just loved to play and create. Michelle's mother, Suzanne and Father Michael raised her and her younger sister in this modest home in Ontario, California. She was a cross-country runner.

Good student. I was an ever achiever. You were the kid who ruined the curve for everybody else. Yeah, actually, sometimes. Michelle was offered a scholarship to attend Dickinson, a well-regarded liberal arts college back east in Pennsylvania. You must have both been very proud of how your child was working out. Oh, yeah. Very proud.

After graduation, she tried various careers before eventually landing a marketing job at Disney. And now she had met this man. Ian Diaz, the U.S. Marshal, her very own Prince Charming. In December 2014, for her 28th birthday, he wished her off to New York. He took her to the sweeping vistas atop Rockefeller Center and proposed. And you said? I said yes, yeah. I said yes. It was time to find a starter castle to complete the fairy tale.

Just minutes from her job at Disney, they bought into a new condo development in Anaheim. She would be able to watch the Disneyland fireworks from the roof. I put the hold down payment down. You paid the hold down payment, yes. They waited for the condo to be finished, and in June they moved in. But Michelle said that's when the relationship changed. Fell apart, actually. Two months later, she packed her jetta with whatever stuff she could fit in and left.

Showed up at her parents' doorstep. Surprise? Tell me about that night. Well, I had gotten a text from her saying, can I come home? And I said, you don't even need to ask. Why were you not suited for him, in your opinion? I didn't feel that the relationship was healthy for me. Not nurturing for you?

Not nurturing for me, yeah. Were there tempers? Were there... Let's just say that I'm not a strong personality. And so, you know, I have to be very careful the kinds of people I surround myself with. It's almost better for me not to be in a relationship than to be in a bad one.

But there were still ties that bound the former couple, a mortgage, the deed. to that condo in Anaheim, which became a source of tension. Both hired lawyers, but it got personal. Michelle claimed Ian was unfaithful, even abusive, and she sent him a strange email, the language laced with religiosity and references to the Bible, Satan, and a mythical demon called Lilith. Please explain to your real estate attorney that God's law is above all laws, including the law of man. Lilith, you may try to hide behind the law of man, but it is a weak shield that will bend and crack against the sword of God. Ian denied her allegations and said he was so alarmed by Michelle's email that he applied for a restraining order against her.

He accused her of infidelity and wrote, because of her emotional instability, history of fits of rage, I fear for my safety. The request for the restraining order was dismissed a few weeks later and the law of man providence. failed, or so it seemed. The lawyers hashed out a compromise. We actually ended up getting a settlement agreement. Ian and Michelle signed it in November 2015. The deal allowed Ian to stay in the condo, but he had six months to get his own mortgage. Failing that, he'd have to sell the condo and split any profits with Michelle. Michelle stood to lose most of her down payment about $10,000, but she said it was worth it. I moved on with my life completely. 100% completely. I actually had started dating again.

So you had this toothache of a problem with a condo, but that was not a major part of your life. Well, and once the settlement agreement was signed, it was just a waiting game. She went back to school, started an MBA program at Chapman University. Ian, too, moved on quickly, married a woman named Angela. But the nagging condo issue still wasn't resolved, and the six-month deadline was approaching. And that's kind of when all the fireworks started happening. By June 1, 2016, tension over the Anaheim condo Michelle Hadley and Ian Diaz had shared was once again starting to peak. The deadline was fast approaching.

Ian needed to take over the mortgage or sell the condo. And that's when some odd events began to unfold. Michelle's father, Michael, was at work. His youngest daughter was at their home in Ontario. I get a phone call from my youngest daughter saying, hey, somebody's knocked, beaten on the door. And I said, look outside. Is there a police car? She says, yeah, there's two of them. I said, well, then open the door, because it's scared her, I guess. And so a woman throws down a restraining order. Here you've been served kind of thing?

Yeah, here you've been served with the police, two officers there. And it was from Angela Diaz. The restraining order was for Michelle, who was still living at her parents' home. It came from Angela Diaz, Ian's wife of three months, who had recently announced, she was pregnant. She took this selfie to chronicle the news. Angela came into the picture not long after Ian and Michelle had actually broken up. Reporter Kate Brickley covered this story for The Daily Beast. She spent hours digging through the curious emails Michelle sent Ian during the condo dispute. One minute she's very polite and thanking him for reminders on her car insurance.

The next minute, you know, she's saying that he's Satan and the Antichrist. Even after they signed the agreement on the condo, the emails kept coming. Ian got this one on May 22nd. You told me I was your first love, but you did not treat me like the precious perfect treasure I am. You have sinned against God, and I want my power back because it belongs to us, the daughters of God. Then something new and strange started happening. Angela began receiving emails too. Long, rambling emails saying that, you know, her husband, Ian, doesn't love her, that Michelle is, you know, his one true love and that Ian is cheating on her. He manipulates women. She better get out of the picture soon before he hurts her.

These new emails to Angela sounded like Michelle's emails to Ian, complete with biblical imagery. But they came from multiple email addresses and were signed Jason Ray. telling Angela that she would always be Eve and that Michelle was Ian's Lilith, his truth, and that Angela would never be his one true love. Then another email to Angela appeared. The subject line, Die, the message, I hope you are scared of death tomorrow. Be prepared, don't sleep, be watchful of the daughters of God. The email continued, we will steal your child, and we will watch your child, and we will watch as a

it dies. Angela said when she looked to see who sent this email, it was from Michelle Hadley. You can understand from Angela's point of view why she'd be so rattled. Right. A barrage of emails arrived on May 31, 2016. Be warned, Angela, you've lost. I am going to end you. You will suffer. I will pray for you. The next morning, June 1st, Angela filed for that restraining order. It read in part, Miss Hadley has been emailing me for over one week. repeatedly threatening my life, my marriage, my safety, slandering my husband. The rhetorical language you used in your email to your ex, had a kind of biblical Old Testament ferocity to it.

They said this is the same person. Well, no comment on that, but, you know, I... But to your ears, it was not at all. No, no. Michelle admit she did send fire and brimstone emails to Ian. No, she was reluctant to discuss them on camera. She later told us it was a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder, which she blamed on her volatile relationship with her ex.

But she told us she never sent any emails to Angela. In fact, Michelle says she didn't even know her. I've never heard of her. I've never communicated with her. Couldn't say where she lived or pick her out of a lineup. Exactly. I mean, I'm assuming she lives as a condo with him, but aside from that, that's the extent of what I know about her.

I don't know what her job is. I don't know where she works. I know nothing about her background. Or so she said, police thought otherwise. There was very compelling evidence. Sergeant Darren Wyatt was the public information officer for the Anaheim Police Department. There was some very vivid, religious, ferocious imagery that was clearly written by Michelle to her ex. It seems to be in the same kind of emails that are coming to Angela.

Did that drive some of your theory about the case? I can't talk about specifics, but there was clear and consistent. convincing evidence to believe that Michelle Hadley was the person who was sending the emails. A judge ordered Michelle to cease all contact with Angela and Ian. But the emails continued. June 6th, you will pay for this. I hope to God you are ready for the pain I will show you. Then this, burn in the fiery pits of hell tonight as by God's law, you will be hurt.

Three weeks after the restraining order was filed, police returned to Michelle's parents' house. have a search warrant for my devices, and so I hand all my devices over, I give them all the pass codes, and he opens up my cell phone. The officer looked through her email account, check the activity there, then arrested Michelle for violating the restraining order. I heard door slamming out in front, and I went out in the front, and I said, what's going on out here? And the guy said, he just arrested Michelle. Arrested your Michelle? Yes. She was placed in a holding cell. Her parents posted a bomb to get her out. And after a very long night, they picked her up from the Anaheim Police Department.

There she was sitting on the steps out in front. It's one of the stranger days of your life. No stranger. But strange days were only beginning. June 2016, Michelle Hadley was out on bail, living with her parents. Anaheim police suspected Michelle had sent threatening emails to her ex-boyfriend Ian and his pregnant wife, Angela. Even though on its face, it didn't make much sense. young woman who lived in an exemplary life, good student, she's trying to get an MBA.

Well, there's two sides to every person, and all we're seeing is the evidence that looks very clear that everything is originating from Michelle Hadley. But the case against Michelle went way beyond threatening emails. Police had evidence she was up to something much more sinister, something stomach-churning. It began about the same time as the deadline on the condo was approaching. Somebody was posting ads online through, Craigslist saying that they wanted to fulfill this rape fantasy. Rape fantasy is a genre? I don't think I've ever heard of this.

I had never heard of it either until this particular case, but apparently, yes, there's a market for it. It's a type of personal ad. You can find them on Craigslist and elsewhere online. Men seeking women who want to meet and act out a rape. In early June, a woman responded to one of those ads. I have been dying to have a rape fantasy occur. If you can fulfill this tonight, please let me know, I am 30, tall, gorgeous and ready. I have a Yorkie I walk every night. Come find me. The writer gave an address, the condo in Anaheim where Angela and Ian lived. On June 13th, Angela and Ian told police a man showed up at their door, expecting to have violent sex with Angela. They told police they sent him away. Then, less than two weeks later, a distraught Angela called

911. Somebody came from behind me and showed me against my wall and started to choke me and saying things in my ears. What were they saying to you? They were telling me that I'm going to get it and it's time for me to get raped. They were also choking you, ma'am? They were choking me. They smashed my face against the wall and they ripped my blouse.

Angela told the 911 operator she was able to fend off the attacker, and he ran away. Police officers rush to the conduct. They encounter a very distraught Angela Diaz, who says that another person had shown up. And she's got abrasions. Look here, right? Correct, on her neck. This is way beyond internet misdemeanor mischief. This is a criminal act in your city.

Most definitely a criminal act. Who was inviting men to rape Angela? Police believe there was no question. It was Michelle Hadley. That's what led them to arrest Michelle outside her parents' home. Angela reported that during the night Michelle spent in jail, she received no threatening emails. But then Michelle made bail.

She was out. And almost immediately, the emails start again. So is there kind of a feel here of, look, we warned you about this activity? Correct. And it's continuing. Correct. This is a very complicated scheme, Kate. Yes.

Reporter Kate Brickley tried to unravel the story from her office in New York City. Angela Diaz appeared to be the victim at the center of an increasingly dangerous game. She was afraid for her. life. She was afraid to go anywhere. She felt that she had to uproot her whole life, take down her online profiles, and hide. July 11th, two weeks after Michelle bailed out of jail, a new rape fantasy ad appeared on Craigslist and a response. Once again, the email directed the man who placed the ad to the home of Angela Diaz. And what would Michelle's motivation be in doing this campaign? There's the fact that there's some sort of a love triangle going on, right?

And there's also the unsold condominium. The condo was still a factor in the story. The bank had not approved Ian and Angela for a mortgage. So it was time to sell as agreed to. But that wasn't going to happen, according to Michelle's father. The ex-boyfriend was digging in his heels. He's not going to sell the condo. He does not want to move out, period.

He just makes that clear. On July 12, 2016, even as she remained under investigation for cyberstalking and worse, Michelle filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Ian over the condo. The next day, Angela called police. Yet another man was outside her condo. Anaheim detectives found a 17-year-old in the courtyard. He told police he was responding to a Craigslist ad. Then Orange County Deputy District Attorney Rick Zimmer.

We knew we had somebody in possibly mortal danger, Angela Diaz. All of the evidence is pointing to Michelle Hadley. This is not mischief. This is grave grave. This is about as serious as it gets. Police got a warrant and once again arrested Michelle Hadley. It's very hard to see your daughter being placed in handcuffs. And I just kept saying to him, no, no, I can't believe it. Michelle faced multiple felony charges.

She's charged with stalking. She's charged with attempted rape. She's charged with assault with intent to commit a sexual offense while committing a first-degree burglary. So she's got a bungee. of problems. She's got a bundle of problems. Michelle's second arrest made headlines in Orange County and across the country.

The headline seemed too cookey and convoluted to even be true. Bail this time was $1 million. Michelle faced life in prison. Is this rock bottom moment for you, Michelle? Absolutely. It's the scariest moment in my

life. The charges and the headlines were devastating. In an article in her home, The hometown paper, the shorthand was that Michelle Hadley was the psycho ex-girlfriend from hell. The mover behind a lurid and devious plot. Her parents, Michael and Suzanne, couldn't, wouldn't believe it. There's nothing in character with the Michelle that you've raised here. Not at all.

It's actually 180 degrees so out of sync with her behavior. Michelle sat in the county locker. Bail was set at $1 million. line is we're going to have to fight this, and that's it. It was pretty tough. The Hadleys told Michelle they could afford to post-bail or pay for a defense lawyer, not both. They left the decision to Michelle. She said, hire a lawyer.

I told my dad, I was scared to death. I didn't know what was going to happen in jail, but I told my dad, and I was like, I can handle it. And you're incarcerated? Yep. For potentially the rest of my life. The girl who loved Disneyland, fairy tale princesses, and her morning story. Starbucks tried to tough it out behind bars. Jailhouse denims were her new black.

I stood out like a sore of thumb. What is your cell like? Tiny. They have two bunk beds, a table and two chairs, and then your toilet is actually attached to your sink. So everyone can kind of see in, so you never get any privacy. What is the day in jail?

They wake you at 4.30 a.m. Then they bring you your breakfast. And I'm guessing not a foamy Starbucks. No Starbucks. Michelle, the sounds at the jailhouse. Yeah, good luck sleeping in jail. The door slamming is very loud. And the women at night sometimes scream like banshees.

So you'll hear it echoing throughout the jail. The population of street-hardened prisoners took a close look at the petite young woman from the good home, now living in their cell block. Checked her out especially after that story about her on the local paper got passed around. After that article, I had women coming up. up to my cell door harassing me about it. I got a death threat letter at one point, slipped under my cell door. What if one of the girls goes after me?

What happens then? One of the women who took you under your wing said, you got a toughen up girl. Yeah, she did. Yeah. You need to develop a little swagger. Yeah. Well, apparently I walk like a church mouse, and that's not cool. And she said, you're going to get hurt in here because you look weak when you walk.

Michelle took comfort writing long letters to her family, trying to convince them and herself that she was okay. July 21st, 2016, dear Ma and Daddy and Rebecca, my commissary order finally arrived today, so I have paper and decent pencils among other goodies. Writing has always relaxed me, and since I'm pretty sure this ordeal is the most stressful of my life to date, you can expect to get letters from me. I wanted to send you one positive thing and one thing I want to do when I'm free as much for my mood and sanity as for yours. One positive thing, I haven't had this much time to read in a long time. Wish list. A gourmet burger and a glass of red wine. All my love, Michelle.

I hear a lot of you reassuring them in that. That was exactly what was happening. I didn't want them to worry too much. I didn't want them to be afraid. they were already fighting so much on the outside and doing so much work, you know, and I wanted them to be proud of what a brave girl they had raised. But as the weeks turned into months, her brave front started to crack.

There were mornings when I would wake up and I would open my eyes and I would see the white jail cell wall and I would think, okay, I'm going to wake up a second time. This is just a nightmare. And it wasn't. It was for real.

I was starting to feel like I was slipping away. You felt your humanity slipping away? Yeah. Meanwhile, Michelle's parents were in crisis mode. Their daughter was in trouble. So they started their own investigation into the emails at the heart of the case. Was it clear to you, Mike, that if you're going to claw your way out of this thing, you've got to understand the story told by the computers.

Correct. The forensics of this case. Absolutely. Mike had copies of all the incredible. incriminating emails from the evidence filed with that restraining order. He went through them with software that traces IP addresses, the numeric codes that identify a computer network or an individual device. This investigative software that you use to become your own detective,

is that something you've got to go to Caltech to get a copy of? Is this NSA material? Oh, gosh, no. It's the 15-year-old kid material. As Mike got results, Suzanne would organize them. He would print out on yellow pads of legal paper, all the IP addresses, and then I would take all of them, and I put them on a spreadsheet, and then we highlighted where certain IP addresses were the same. The idea being that this IP address is going to go back to a physical location.

Yes. But while the Hadleys were trying to find evidence to clear their daughter, police and prosecutors were still doing everything they could to link those same emails to Michelle. We have a very skilled detective who is working on the case, and he was in constant communications with the district attorney's office and trying to piece it together to help prove a case and solidify it for court. Two sides trying to make sense of those vexing emails, unaware that in a case full of lurid surprises, the biggest ones were yet to come. Michelle Hadley was behind bars, but the investigation still had a long way to go. Deputy District Attorney Rick Zimmer

wanted conclusive proof that all the threatening emails and rape fantasies came from Michelle's devices. We didn't have the whole picture. It was all kind of a jumbled mess at this point. While computer experts attempted to piece together the cyber puzzle, detectives did some old-fashioned gumshoe work. They dug into the background of their suspect, Michelle Hadley, and also of her alleged victim, Angela Diaz. That led them to a close friend of Angela's named Mary Bukovskis.

She was fun. She was funny. She was what you would want to have for a friend. Mary met Angela in early 2014, a couple of years before Angela married Ian. They became fast friends. And life seemed good for Angela back then. A job at a prestigious law firm, she had a live-in boyfriend at the time, a guy named Jason Rayburn. But not long after they met, Mary learned some devastating news. She told me that she had ovarian cancer and was going through treatment. And I wanted to do what I could to help. So she was talking about a very aggressive cancer.

Very aggressive. Mary did her best to be there for her friend. She made a prayer bulletin board and put it up at her son's school. And when Angela lost her hair from chemotherapy, Mary cut hers as well. You were going to be bald in solidarity with your friend Angela? Yes. And I was very upset that I didn't have the guts to go all the way. And that was a hashtag for it.

Angie Warrior. When she would sign cards or just doodle, she would do hashtag Angie Warrior, and if I would post something about her, then I would hashtag it with Angie Warrior. After her weekly chemo appointments, Angela would show Mary the bandage over the port where medication was injected. Were you worried about her? Very much so. You thought you might lose her? I did, yes.

But after a month of treatment, Mary noticed Angela doing things that seemed ill-advised at best. When she would come over, she would bring a bottle of wine and drink basically the entire bottle. Which is a no-no for a cancer patient? Absolutely, no sugar. And eat Oreos and Pirate Booty. That's a lot of sugar, a lot of carbs, and you don't do that. Maybe Angela was just stressed out. But then Mary noticed something else.

Angela, who told everyone she was bald from chemo, seemed to have plenty of hair under her wool cap. Mary went straight to Angela's boyfriend, Jason. Did you say I've got suspicions about this? I did. And he started paying attention to the emails. that he would get from her in text. And there was a picture that she sent of an IV

with her purportedly receiving chemotherapy and it said battle juice on it. Battle juice. Battle juice. At this point, we kind of was like, no, and he and I independently went through Google images for chemotherapy, and we both found it.

It wasn't Angela's IV bag, just a random pick sheet found online. Mary decided to call the hospital where Angela claimed she was getting treatments. I called and said that my friend was having chemotherapy treatment, and obviously I had her birth date and her first and last name, and they couldn't find her anywhere. So this is the place where you think she's going several times a month, I would assume, to have chemo?

And they had no record of this person existing? None, absolutely none. Fictitious chemo treatments, a bogus photo, a full head of hair. It was hard to imagine. Was Angie Warrior faking everything? Mary and Jason thought so and decided to stage an intervention. Angela arrived wearing a wig with a pink ribbon. Jason confronted Angela.

Mary recorded it all on her cell phone. Angela, you don't have cancer. Yes, I do. No, you don't. How do you not? Would you like to speak with my parents and everybody? What are you talking about? Let's see your port.

Angela, just sit down. There's overwhelming proof that you don't have cancer. So everybody in this room has been deceived. And, and truthfully, you put me through hell. When I packed her stuff, we found white bandage and then surgical tubing that she would put around it to make it look like she had some type of a port in her arm. There was no cancer. No.

Show me your port. Throughout the intervention, Angela never admitted to Mary that she was faking her illness. Show your port, liar. Show your port. But when prosecutor Rick Zimmer learned that the alleged victim in his convoluted case had faked a cancer episode,

he started to question everything. Angela Diaz is highly, highly intelligent, charming, excellent people skills, went to good schools. So in a computer case, this doesn't compute. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, we kind of getting an error message here. Meanwhile, after weeks of computer forensics,

investigators began seeing results. But not the ones they expected. Something's starting to look kinky. They'd been able to isolate hours and days when Michelle Hadley had no way to get online. We were able to narrow down a couple of times where we know she didn't have access to those when emails were being sent to Angela Diaz. Put simply, they discovered Angela had received cyber threats that Michelle could not possibly have sent. We're just kind of, you know, shaking our heads to each other.

We're stunned. If Michelle wasn't threatening Angela, who was? In October 2016, after 86 days in lock-up, Michelle Hadley walked out of jail. Prosecutor Rick Zimmer had decided there wasn't enough evidence to hold her. We weren't ready at that point to say, okay, you're completely in the clear,

but what we did was we did agree to let her out of custody. But with a big condition, Michelle had to wear a GPS ankle bracelet at all times. You know, I already felt like I was so scarred from jail. And wearing that device, you kind of still feel like you're an animal. Like I had wrapped it with this sports bandage because I was so embarrassed to be wearing it, you know. With Michelle out of jail, investigators amped up efforts to crack the case. They knew Michelle could not have sent some of the mysterious online threats to Angela.

So, who was behind them? The sender was masking where they came from. Internet providers would have the exact times and locations for all of the emails and postings. But getting that info wasn't so easy. We're sending out search warrants for that. When these technology companies get those search warrants, they sit on them for weeks to months. For instance, Google, you're asking questions. For example or Microsoft or Verizon or AT&T, it takes them a long time to get back to us.

A lot of people think we can just call up and say, hey, we're the cops. Give us what we want. That's not how it works. Meanwhile, they look long and hard at Angela herself, the apparent victim. The thing is, Angela, you don't have cancer. Yes, I do. No, you don't. But also a woman apparently capable of faking cancer to win sympathy from her friends.

Naturally, they wondered what else she was capable of faking. We find out that this supposed pregnancy that she had with Ian Diaz, that was a lie. She had actually faked a sonogram, and that never happened. It never existed. The law degree she told friends she had? Laud degree was fake. Basically, jobs that she said she had were faked. And they suspected she had fake something at the very center of the case. They're choking me. They smashed my face against the wall, and they ripped my blouse. Then district attorney Tony Rukakis said upon closer examination,

Angela's story of the night she was attacked didn't seem to add up. You have to go to an alley to get to the garage, and the garage doesn't have an address on it. So you're wondering how this alleged Salon actually found her? That gets to be a question. And then also there was some surveillance cameras that were in the area. And presumably would have shown someone trying to enter. And you didn't have that. We didn't have that.

What about the scene itself? When you start questioning whether or not this could have happened in her story about how she fought the guy off and compare that to the rather light injuries that she was showing, it all started looking a little bit sketchy. Then, information started coming in from those search warrants. The trail of digital ones and zeros showed that the damning emails didn't come from a computer at all, but from a cell phone. Angela's cell phone.

Six long months after Michelle Hadley was first charged... Good morning, and thank you all for coming. The DA called a press conference and delivered the news. I'm here to announce the filing of a felony complaint against Angela Marie Diaz by the Orange County District Attorney's Office. It was a stunning reversal. The DA accused Angela Diaz of sending herself threatening emails, inviting men to her own home

to act out rape fantasies, inflicting injuries on herself, all the while posing online as Michelle Hadley. Their original victim ended up being their number one suspect. How's that for whiplash? I don't think anyone could believe it. The DA said Angela cooked up the whole elaborate scheme in order to portray herself as a victim and put her husband's ex-girlfriend behind bars.

What's more, at least for a few months, the DA said, she succeeded. When someone who's innocent gets arrested in charge with a crime, that's not just a bad day. It's a nightmare. It needs to be made clear in the media and in cyberspace. Ms. Hadley is an innocent victim of a diabolical scheme. How did that word come to you? And what did you mean now about diabolical in this? scheme. Diabolical is something evil. It's something that the devil might do. You're sorry that the first theory was wrong. Absolutely. You know, it's a terrible thing to accuse an innocent person. The ankle bracelet came off. Michelle Hadley was free. You're happy, but your emotions are all over

the place because you're kind of coming out of this fog. Were the apologies enough? Your county authorities doing an effect a walk of shame saying we got this terribly wrong. I appreciate the apologies, but the apologies don't rebuild your life. And the apologies don't undo what's been done. I'll carry this around for the rest of my life. Facing a slew of felony charges, including forgery, filing false police reports and burgery, Angela Diaz pleaded guilty in exchange for a five-year sentence.

Alison Margolin was Angela's defense attorney. There was an overwhelming evidence against her that she did participate in the scheme, and that's why we ended up resolving the case. Is it an equitable solution? I think it's extremely equitable to the solution, what happened here. Angela has to pay for what she's done, and I think she's going to have the opportunity to focus on who she is a person and hopefully get some kind of rehabilitation, you know, some kind of moral rehabilitation.

Angela spent three and a half years behind bars and was released in July 2020. Ian ended his marriage to Angela, but at a time, Attorney Margolin believed, despite Angela's guilty plea, she did not hatch the scheme that landed her in jail. If not her, who? Well, if not her, then her ex-husband, who may have, who had the motive to do this. Ian, the U.S. Marshal. That's right. Ian.

Angela's ex-husband, Michelle's ex-boyfriend. I just would say that he had the opportunity and the motive. Margoleyn pointed to another key fact contained in the digital evidence of Angela's crimes. The online threats were often sent from the crime. comfort of the condo she and Ian shared. The same condo Ian bought with Michelle's help, and that he stood to lose if he could not meet the terms of his contract with her. This is where Angela and Ian lived, and I don't think that they wanted to leave. So if the ex-girlfriend, crazy psycho ex-girlfriend in the public eye, is incarcerated in a way, that resolves some of these financial issues?

Right. They'll have complete control over their residence. Federal prosecutors took a closer look at the role Ian Diaz may have played in the scheme. After their investigation, Ian was charged with conspiracy to commit cyber-stalking, perjury, and obstruction of justice. He pleaded not guilty and the case went to trial. In March 2023, the now-former U.S. Marshal was convicted on all counts, and later sentenced to 10 years and one month. He's filed an appeal. Michelle sued the city of Anaheim.

In 2021, the city without admitting liability agreed to pay Michelle $1.795 million. The Anaheim Police Department, our detective didn't create the situation. We did what we had to do as the circumstances came about and as the evidence presented itself, up to an including continuing to investigate and exonerating Michelle. On the same day Ian Diaz was convicted in 2023, Michelle gave birth to a baby girl. She told NBC News that the verdict brought peace to her family and restored some of her faith in the justice system. Michelle said,

My daughter represents my rainbow after a very long storm, and my heart has never felt so full. One step, perhaps, in rekindling the spirit of an innocent young woman whose life was changed forever by something, well, something diabolical. I don't think there's anything more evil than find Finding a girl who believes in the best in humanity and who loves other people deeply and making her question who she is, making her question her faith in humanity. And that's all for this edition of Dateline.

Don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast in which we'll go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday. at 10, 9 central. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.